"The Game" - a meandering...

"You don't play the game,
the game plays you"

Yellowstone

~

I am being played by Life...

I am not responsible for how
"The Game" is played out or how it ends.

I'm just a "player" in "The Game."
I need to let it play out -
to step aside and let it play -
let it unfold.

Beliefs don't matter.
It's all like a play, a movie, a dance, a story, a "game."
Choose your word, the one that resonates with you.
Some call it a dream...

I have to ride it out, and
not take "The Game" seriously.

I'm not in control of "The Game."

You don't direct the dance,
the dance directs you,
and there's nothing but
the dance...

It's all part of a larger "Game" that we
cannot even comprehend.

There are many depths, many layers
to "The Game."
There are multiple levels all playing at
the same time.

Each day you have to "see" how "The Game"
will play out - how to play "The Game" that day -
how you're going to play.

It's kind of like Alice in Wonderland,
where the game changes depending on
which rabbit hole you go down, or which
door you go through - what fantasy you
choose to play.

Each day a new fantasy or a continuation of
an old one, an old theme that keeps getting 
replayed - but who chooses?  Are there doors
that you must go through as part of your life
experience?  Did Alice have a choice?  It seems
she just fell down the rabbit hole -
into another reality,
another game...

What hole will I fall down and what doors will I have
to go through in the life experience, Life Game -
and what hat am I going to wear? :)

Mystic Meandering

Nov. 17, 2022

~

Photo - Mad Hatter hat
from the internet

 

 

Notes to myself...

.....everything you've ever known is nothing but an
infinitely small blip in the middle of a yawning
expanse of infinity...

You are a loosely associated cloud of cells swirling around
for a short time in inseparable interplay with the ecosystem
which birthed it on a tiny planet in the outer periphery of a
galaxy...  You're a little eddie twirling in the  middle of the
ocean for a single instant...

Each big bang in every universe unleashes a new dance of
swirling energy which turns into increasingly complex
iterations of matter as it expands...into peaks of dazzling
beauty, then it grows old and collapses in on itself again.
Infinite universes birth into existence, they bloom and die
with me like flowers in the illusory appearance of time.

Love doesn't seek to dominate or control.  Real love loves
everything just as it is, however it shows up.  They are all
parts of the swirling ongoing explosions of this universe.
They're all little curlicues in the movement of energy.
No part of the cosmic dance is rejected.
Every part is embraced.

Caitlin Johnstone

~

...you have been afraid to break down, I know.  You have
been carrying so much.  But do not fear the terrible ache of
existence.  You will be breathed through the abyss and carried
lovingly by nameless forces through the voided voids and out
again into the awe and shock and vastness of living.

Breathe,my love, breathe.  Do not fear the oblivion, it is the
only place where you will find your true freedom...

Jeff Foster

~

Photo from the Internet 

 

The Dance - Oriah

 

“Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be…someday. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next… Here is the question: Are you willing to be completely at peace with how things are right now in your life? Are you willing for just one moment to let go of all your dissatisfaction, of all your suffering about how things are? Are you willing to let go of all the worry and tension in your body and simply breathe? I think of happiness as the delight I have when I am aware of being completely at peace and fully present with myself and the world just the way it is in this moment. It is a lack of suffering plus a self-reflectivity that makes the peace I am feeling a conscious state of awareness. I am not simply at peace, I am aware that I am at peace—happy. So, are you willing to be happy?”

“If I want to live my ability to be fully present and compassionate, my ability to be with it all—the joy and the sorrow—I must find the ways, the people, the places, the practices that support me in being all I truly am. I must cultivate ways of being that let me feel the warmth of encouragement against my heart when it is weary.”

“What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature—gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present? How would this affect how you feel when you wake up in the morning?”

Excerpts from - The Dance: Moving to the Deep Rhythms of Your Life
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

 

A Sliver of Reality - Kim Manly Ort

Our experiences and consequently our perceptions, gives us
a limited view of the world, a sliver of reality, if you will.
It's a valid sliver, but only a sliver.  Thought of in this way,
It's a wonder any of us can find similarities of experience
and understanding with others...

I'm all about seeing clearly, but each of us sees clearly differently,
depending on our identity (selected experience) and worldview.
For the past couple of years, I've been noticing what others
choose to believe and asking why.  I'm not exactly sure what to do
with some of the differences I have have difficulty understanding
or even how to talk to someone with a completely different
worldview.  I certainly have my own way of seeing and I find
some worldviews mind-boggling.  However, it's always a good
idea to question your own sliver of reality.

The Role of "Chance"

The musician and composer, John Cage, thought of "chance" as
something that happened to us, but also as something you could
invite into your life.  Why would you do that?  Because, if you
operate according to your own will or our story of how things are
or should be, you eliminate possibilities.

Cage invited "chance" into his life and [art].  The idea was to give
his will, his wants, his desired outcome a break and let "chance"
make a decision.  By using what he called "chance operations", he
could destroy his narrative, his particular point of view.  It's not that
his point of view wasn't worthy, just that it was limited and there
were a multiplicity of points of view he many not have considered.
It's a mindset where he let things be as they are without imposing
his own judgments on them.

Life is a dance with "chance"; always uncertain, often out of our
control, and this is scary.  We can embrace it, as John Cage did.
Whenever we feel our ego or rigid story is in charge, or we're
resisting reality and forming judgments, it's time to get curious
and ask questions like: "How else can I look at this?" or "What
other choice could I make?"  Why not let things be, invite "chance"
in, and explore the many possibilities that arise.

Kim Manly Ort
Writer, Photographer, Workshop Facilitator

~

"Life is like a box of chocolates,
you never know what you're going to get."

Forrest Gump

~

Personal Note:  What John Cage and Kim refer to as "Chance" I call
"The Mystery."  Some call it "Spirit", or even Intuition; tapping
into something greater than my self for Inspiration...  My husband
sees each day as a new life experience that offers a portal to Eternity,
if we let it, even the mundane, like mowing the lawn.  Sometimes he
will randomly choose from a list of possibilities for the day, or do
what he feels drawn to do that day.  Is that "chance" or opening to
the Field of "The Mystery" - or his own Intuition?  He says:
Intuition is the mainline to "The Universe."  It's how "The Universe"
communicates.  It's the flow of awareness that comes from
"The  Universe."

~

John Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer, music theorist,
writer, philosopher, and artist.  Cage studied Indian philosophy and
Zen Buddhism in the late 1940's, and the I Ching was a source of
reference for him, using it as a "random chance generator", as well
as a philosophical reference.

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
Moon and reflection in skylight 
a portal to eternity? :)